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According to expert contributors at Daily Mail, some of our favorite fashion statements are making us carry around some extra pounds! You won’t believe what should be fab is making you flab:

YOUR HANDBAG: After noticing some of his patients carry more fat on one side of their body, cosmetic doctor Michael Prager realized that it was often the side on which the patients held their oversized handbags. “Before I perform laser fat removal I measure where patients carry fat, so we can measure inch loss post-treatment,’ he says. ‘Many of my female patients carry more fat down one side of their body and their fat stores were uneven. The only thing these women had in common was their ridiculously big handbags.”

FAKE TAN: For years we’ve thought a fake tan will leave us looking slimmer and more toned. But could it actually make us fatter in the long run? Scientists in Sweden have discovered that chemicals known as phthalates in self-tanning lotions make us more prone to weight gain and twice as likely to develop diabetes.

MULTI-TASKING: For most women, continuously switching between chores is part and parcel of daily life. But new research has found that serially switching tasks exhausts the part of our brain that regulates self-control. “When you help your kids with their homework, then respond to a work email on your BlackBerry, then go right back to algebra, you’re doing tasks that require very different mindsets. which is what we found saps self-control resources,” says Professor Ryan Hamilton, who worked on the study.

LEGGINGS: Sammy Margo, a physiotherapist, has warned that too-tight leggings can cause your muscles to become lazy, which results in a flabby stomach, bottom and legs. ‘Leggings feel good and look great, and I am as addicted to them as anyone, but there is a downside,’ she says. ‘They hold in and support the thigh muscles, buttocks and core muscles in your tummy, and do the job the muscles are supposed to do. As a result, the muscles are allowed to relax and switch off. So when we reveal our bodies for the first time as summer approaches, they are not as svelte or firm as they otherwise would be.’

HIGH HEELS: Personal trainer Dax Moy thinks that wearing vertiginous heels too often can cause your stomach muscles to spill forward. ‘Wearing very high heels causes the forward tilting of the pelvis, which allows the abdominal contents to spill forward, producing a pot belly which many women have wrongly come to think of as a fat stomach,’ says Dax.